Top 100 Quotes About Offence
#1. I have no heart?
Perhaps I have not;
But then you're mad to take offence
That I don't give you what I have not got:
Use your own common sense.
Christina Rossetti
#2. you cloak your offence by ignorance, saying that you did not know my determination in this matter. it is a double offence to do ill and color it so.
Julia Fox
#3. 'Tis easier for the generous to forgive, than for offence to ask it.
James Thomson
#4. As for himself, when he went to go to a party, as one was sometimes obliged to, from a wish not to give offence, he walked into the middle of the room, said 'Ha! Ha!' as loud as ever he could, considered he had done his duty, and went home.
Virginia Woolf
#5. I was in Estonia when a professor asked me if I was aware that making any criticism of the Red Army during the war was now an imprisonable offence. I was quite shaken.
Antony Beevor
#6. You must forgive my cousin, Mr. Carroll; his manners are deplorable."
Colonel Fitzwilliam feigned offence and turned to the butler while addressing his cousin's barb. "Mr. Carroll and I have an understanding, don't we, man? He knows I prefer to walk in unannounced.
KaraLynne Mackrory
#7. I, for instance, have a great deal of AMOUR PROPRE. I am as suspicious and prone to take offence as a humpback or a dwarf.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
#9. Yet beauty, though injurious, hath strange power, After offence returning, to regain Love once possess'd.
John Milton
#10. What dire offence from am'rous causes springs,
What mighty contests rise from trivial things, ...
Alexander Pope
#11. A writer must not take offence when inverts give his heroines masculine faces.
Marcel Proust
#12. Apologize: To lay the foundation for a future offence.
Ambrose Bierce
#13. Long hair is an unpardonable offence which should be punishable by death.
Morrissey
#14. In the bonds of Death He lay Who for our offence was slain; But the Lord is risen to-day, Christ hath brought us life again, Wherefore let us all rejoice, Singing loud, with cheerful voice, Hallelujah!
Martin Luther
#15. It ought to be a criminal offence for women to dye their hair. Especially red. What the devil do women do that sort of thing for?
P.G. Wodehouse
#16. Mill was very clear on this point: offence should not be confused with harm.
Nigel Warburton
#17. The only 'natural enemies' are those who take one's very nature as an offence.
Simon May
#18. If a man would commit an inexpiable offence against any society, large or small, let him be successful. They will forgive any crime except that.
Charles Dickens
#19. Contrition for an offence must precede the pardon of an offence.
Octavius Winslow
#20. Wrap thyself in the decent veil that the arts or the graces weave for thee, O human nature! It is only the statue of marble whose nakedness the eye can behold without shame and offence!
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
#21. The reason why Broken Men only became Untouchables was because in addition to being Buddhists, they retained their habit of beef-eating, which gave additional ground for offence to the Brahmins to carry their new-found love and reverence to the cow to its logical conclusion.
B.R. Ambedkar
#22. For a short while she considered the idea of orchestral courtesy. Certainly one should avoid giving political offence: German orchestras, of course, used to be careful about playing Wagner abroad, at least in some countries, choosing instead German composers who were somewhat more ... apologetic.
Alexander McCall Smith
#23. In my experience, when people take offence at something, it is invariably because they know that there is a large grain of truth in what has offended them. Otherwise, why would they complain about it?
Arthur Mathews
#24. True delicacy, as true generosity, is more wounded by an offence from itself
if I may be allowed the expression
than to itself.
Sir Fulke Greville
#25. In Australia, we point out a person's weaknesses as a way of saying 'I see you and I accept you'. If you do that with Americans, they instantly take offence.
Andrew Dominik
#26. And since the griefstruck rarely know what they need or want, only what they don't, offence-giving and offence-taking are common.
Julian Barnes
#27. Apparently, now, though, we writers and artists are not allowed to give offence. We must not question, criticise or insult the other, for fear of being hounded and murdered. These days a writer without bodyguards can hardly be considered serious. A bad review is the least of our problems.
Hanif Kureishi
#28. But, as Andy pointed out, if being a smart-arse was an offence, the Laundry would not exist in the first place.
Charles Stross
#29. I don't make shit, I make masterpieces," she replied, pretending to take offence from Charlie's words. "And just for that, I'll take a BBQ sauce base with tuna, anchovies and pineapple please.
Beth Ashworth
#30. It were a good strife amongst Christians, one to labour to give no offence, and the other to labour to take none. The best men are severe to themselves, tender over others.
Richard Sibbes
#31. What is called 'offence to a community' is more often than not actually a struggle within communities.
Kenan Malik
#32. The two exist because of the One, But hold not even to this One; When the one Consciousness -is not disturbed, The ten thousand things offer no offence.
Sengcan
#33. The greatest offence against virtue is to speak ill of it.
William Hazlitt
#34. This is the slowest, yet the daintiest sense;
For ev'n the ears of such as have no skill,
Perceive a discord, and conceive offence;
And knowing not what's good, yet find the ill.
Sir John Davies
#35. Satire, being levelled at all, is never resented for an offence by any.
Jonathan Swift
#36. The public scandal is what constitutes the offence: sins sinned in secret are no sins at all.
Moliere
#37. I ask why your Omnipotent God does not hold a man back when he is about to commit a sin or offence. It is child's play for God. Why did He not kill war lords? Why did He not remove the fury of war from their minds? In this way God could have saved humanity from great calamity and horror.
Bhagat Singh
#38. No offence is so heinous as unorthodoxy of behaviour.
Aldous Huxley
#39. Fools should not have chapping sticks'; that is, weapons of offence.
Walter Scott
#41. No offence to Nicki Minaj, but her career has essentially been a Lil' Kim tribute
Azealia Banks
#42. There is no greater offence than harbouring desires. There is no greater disaster than discontent. There is no greater misfortune than wanting more.
Laozi
#43. Humans are nervous, touchy creatures and can be easily offended. Many are deeply insecure. They become focused and energized by taking offence; it makes them feel meaningful and alive.
Michael Leunig
#44. Those who offend us are generally punished for the offence they give; but we so frequently miss the satisfaction of knowing that we are avenged !.
Anthony Trollope
#45. Christianity is alone in thinking that sex is entirely the Devil's business and an offence to God, This is a strange doctrine and almost implies that God and the devil must have collaborated on the creation of humanity, God working above the belly button and the Devil below.
Robert Anton Wilson
#46. Everything written, if it has anything in it, will offend someone, and if the mere taking of offence was to amount to a licence to kill the offender, well the world would be sadly underpopulated of novelists, columnists, bloggers, and the writers of editorials.
Rex Murphy
#47. To my thinking, offence has no possible place in genuine friendship. The one pained always forestalls offence by the realization of non-intention to wound on the part of the other.
Florence L. Barclay
#48. In the corrupted currents of this world
Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice,
And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself
Buys out the law. . .
(Claudius, from Hamlet, Act 3, scene 3)
William Shakespeare
#49. Reassurance, like offence, is taken not given.
David Adam
#50. Politeness can at once be the indifferent affliction of the 'civilized' as well as a subterfuge for the designed offence.
Vinod Pande
#51. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face (to look incredulous when a victory was announced, for example) was itself a punishable offence. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime, it was called. The
George Orwell
#52. When a Cabinet Minister who is sacked for telling lies is re-appointed, in the face of every constitutional convention, only for the same man to be sacked again from the same Cabinet for the same offence by the same Prime Minister no wonder the public are cynical about politics.
William Hague
#53. We have come to think of taking offence as a fundamental right. We value very little more highly than our rage, which gives us, in our opinion, the moral high ground. From this high ground we can shoot down at our enemies and inflict heavy fatalities.
Salman Rushdie
#54. Instead of blaming us, find your true enemy. And, where the offence is, there let the great axe fall.
John Marsden
#55. The merit of 'The Spy Who Came in from the Cold,' then - or its offence, depending where you stood - was not that it was authentic, but that it was credible.
John Le Carre
#56. Being covered in white paint ,you demonstrate behaviour intended to create a public nuisance,which did in fact cause offence to members of the public ,and created a breach of the peace and public order.
Gunter Brus
#57. sound reasoning always gives offence. Julien's
Stendhal
#58. The abuse of children is the worst offence that anybody can commit.
Ann Widdecombe
#59. To govern more securely some Princes have disarmed their subjects ... but by disarming, you at once give offence, since you show your subjects that you distrust them, either by doubting their courage, or as doubting their fidelity, each of which imputations begets hatred against you.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#60. However, if Sir Launcelot of the Lake failed now and then in his behavior, who is there in the world shall say, 'I never fell into error'? And if he more than once offended, who is there shall have hardihood to say, 'I never committed offence'?
Howard Pyle
#61. For granting we have sinned, and that the offence
Of man is made against Omnipotence,
Some price that bears proportion must be paid,
And infinite with infinite be weighed.
John Dryden
#62. Jesu, but you're one hideous offence to the eye." I could tell he was going to kill me, so no point in being tactful.
Mark Lawrence
#63. Jesus will not accept the common distinction between righteous indignation and unjustifiable anger. The disciple must be entirely innocent of anger, because anger is an offence against both God and his neighbour.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
#64. When Bobby came into the league he was a rushing defenseman, a goal scorer and a point getter. He just opened the game up to more offence and that's the way the game is played now.
Johnny Bucyk
#65. How shall I lose the sin, yet keep the sense, and love the offender, yet detest the offence?
Alexander Pope
#66. Imams must ridicule Caliphate fantasies. Exchange programmes between Muslim-only schools and non-Muslim-majority schools should be initiated. Community-based debates around these themes must no longer be shut down from fear of offence.
Maajid Nawaz
#67. Bassanio: Do all men kill all the things they do not love?
Shylock: Hates any man the thing he would not kill?
Bassanio: Every offence is not a hate at first.
William Shakespeare
#68. When I was in my 20s it did occur to me that there was something perverted about an attitude that thought that killing somebody was a minor offence compared to kissing somebody.
John McGahern
#69. All taboos serve different human interests by avoiding those things which threaten to cause offence or distress
Kate Burridge
#70. A government that can at pleasure accuse, shoot, and hang men, as traitors, for the one general offence of refusing to surrender themselves and their property unreservedly to its arbitrary will, can practice any and all special and particular oppressions it pleases.
Lysander Spooner
#71. I think of the company advertising "Thought Processors" or the college pretending that learning BASIC suffices or at least helps, whereas the teaching of BASIC should be rated as a criminal offence: it mutilates the mind beyond recovery.
Edsger Dijkstra
#72. Has something happened to upset you today?"
"Yeah, I had an argument with a vacuum cleaner hose, it wanted me to it a blowjob, but I refused so it took offence. It claimed I blew everyone else's attachment and it wasn't fair.
Gillibran Brown
#73. Blasphemy is not an offence against truth, but the offence of truth against Priestcraft.
Philanthropos
#74. Take advantage of the gracious condescension of the elegant calf's kidney, multiply its metamorphoses: you can without giving it any offence, call it the chameleon of cuisine.
Emmanuel Des Essarts
#75. People apologize too much, everyone's afraid of giving offence and it leads to literature being written for babies. Low-brow rubbish. That's not the way to become an adult.
Sophie Divry
#76. Offence is important; that's how you know you care about things. Imagine a life where you're not offended. So dull.
Marcus Brigstocke
#77. Love is patient and kind. It's never jealous. Love is never boastful or conceited. It is never rude or selfish. It does not take offence and is not resentful
Anonymous
#78. No offence Mitch, but you look like s*****."
"I feel like s****
Vince Flynn
#79. Cross a man and you struggle, one of you wins, you adjust and go on
or you lie there dead. Cross a woman and the universe is changed, once again, for cold anger requires an eternal vigilance in all matters of slight and offence.
Gregory Maguire
#80. If one sets a car on fire, that is a criminal offence. If one sets hundreds of cars on fire, that is political action.
Ulrike Meinhof
#81. Contempt for flowers is an offence against God. The lovelier the flower, the greater the offence in despising it. The tulip is the loveliest of all flowers. So whoever despised the tulip offends God immeasurably.
Alexandre Dumas
#82. The fastidious taste will find offence in the occasional vulgarisms, or what we now call slang, which not a few of our writers seem to have affected.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
#84. Perfect soldier, perfect gentleman never gave offence to anyone not even the enemy.
A.J.P. Taylor
#85. A work of art is somehow organic, and to slash a painting or smash a statue is not just an offence against property: it is an offence against life.
Anthony Burgess
#86. Such an unforgiving spirit will certainly hinder your prayer. No matter how hurtful the offence might be, God still holds you responsible to forgive for the fact that God Himself has forgiven you of all your sins.
Victor Oludiran
#87. There being some of them who had still quite natural manners, which in a courtier is, I need hardly say, a very grave offence.
Oscar Wilde
#88. Podtyagin considers whether to take offence or not
and decides to take offence.
Anton Chekhov
#89. The scandal of the world is what makes the offence; it is not sinful to sin in silence.
Moliere
#90. People seem to take as much offence as they possibly can these days - it's almost a new type of greed, a new kind of road rage.
Michael Leunig
#91. Inexperienced, or insecure, leaders are often tempted to make any infraction a capital offence.
Alex Ferguson
#92. Once I was on a plane and a woman said to me, 'Now, what's the matter with my tomatoes?' And I said, 'Well, it's a bit difficult to see from here.' She took offence and said, 'I was only trying to be friendly.'
Alan Titchmarsh
#93. I'm a great dog fanatic. My own dog died a little while ago and I take it very personally when things die - it's a major offence.
Clive Barker
#94. Never does sin so reign in the Church or State, as when it has gained reputation,or, at least, is no disgrace to the sinner,nor is a matter od offence to we who behold it.
Richard Baxter
#95. Indulgent gods, grant me to sin once with impunity. That is sufficient. Let a second offence bear its punishment.
Ovid
#96. No offence, Em, but us being together is way too dangerous and crazy to risk for just sex. Fuck that. I want do to this right. Are you with me?
Joanna Wylde
#97. The act of taking offence becomes a weapon, and its wielder feels empowered by the false indignation.
Steven Erikson
#98. My belief is, from all that I have seen of the French people and their Government, that they are much more likely to presume upon our weakness than to take offence at our strength.
Robert Peel
#99. Begging would have been the best option if God had given talents to only a selected few. Fortunately, He gave us all our compactible gifts respectively, so it is an offence to be a chronic beggar.
Israelmore Ayivor
#100. Reproof, especially as it relates to children, administered in all gentleness, will render the culprit not afraid, but ashamed to repeat the offence.
Hosea Ballou
